Gero Vogl – författare

This easy-to read book looks at the many ways in which diffusion bears on processes that involve dispersion, starting from the Brownian motion of molecules, covering the invasion of exotic plants, migration of populations, epidemics, and extending to the spreading of languages and ideas.

What do the movements of molecules and the migration of humans have in common? How does the functionality of our brain tissue resemble the flow of traffic in New York City? How can understanding the spread of ideas, rumors, and languages help us tackle the spread a pandemic? This book provides an illuminating look into these seemingly disparate topics by exploring and expertly communicating the fundamental laws that govern the spreading and diffusion of objects. A collection of leading scientists in disciplines as diverse as epidemiology, linguistics, mathematics, and physics discuss various spreading phenomena relevant to their own fields, revealing astonishing similarities and correlations between the objects of study—be they people, particles, or pandemics.

This updated and expanded second edition of an award-winning book introduces timely coverage of a subject with the greatest societal impact in recent memory—the global fight against COVID-19. Winner of the 2019Literature Prize of the German Chemical Industry Fund and brainchild of the international and long-running Diffusion Fundamentals conference series, this book targets an interdisciplinary readership, featuring an introductory chapter that sets the stage for the topics discussed throughout. Each chapter provides ample opportunity to whet the appetite of those readers seeking a more in-depth treatment, making the book also useful as supplementary reading in appropriate courses dealing with complex systems, mass transfer, and network theory.

Chapter “Neolithic Transitions: Diffusion of People or Diffusion of Culture?” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book deals with randomly moving objects and their spreading. The objects considered are particles like atoms and molecules, but also living beings such as humans, animals, plants, bacteria and even abstract entities like ideas, rumors, information, innovations and linguistic features. The book explores and communicates the laws behind these movements and reports about astonishing similarities and very specific features typical of the given object under considerations. Leading scientists in disciplines as diverse as archeology, epidemics, linguistics and sociology, in collaboration with their colleagues from engineering, natural sciences and mathematics, introduce the phenomena of spreading as relevant for their fields. An introductory chapter on “Spreading Fundamentals” provides a common basis for all these considerations, with a minimum of mathematics, selected and presented for enjoying rather than frustrating the reader.

Diffusion ist ein allgegenwärtiger Vorgang in Physik, Chemie und Biologie. Mit der Deutung der Brownschen Molekularbewegung ist Albert Einstein vor fast genau hundert Jahren der wesentliche Schritt zur Erklärung der regellosen Bewegung einzelner Moleküle in Flüssigkeiten und fester Materie gelungen. Mit fortschreitendem Verständnis des physikalischen Phänomens der Diffusion ist das Interesse an der logischen Erklärung von Diffusionsbewegungen außerhalb der "harten Naturwissenschaften", u.a. der Wanderung von Pflanzen, Tieren, Menschen und Ideen gestiegen. Ohne viel Mathematik werden hier die bestechenden Ähnlichkeiten verschiedener Wanderungsbewegungen aufgezeigt.